Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The Minister of Justice submitted a memorial.

What?

You invented another new torture device?

Last month, when you went to the Ministry of Works to arrest someone, it was so you could make a new torture device?

Is that what I asked you to do?

What I want is for you to arrest corrupt officials! Confiscate their property! Turn it over to the national treasury!

You stay behind too!

The Minister of Personnel submitted a memorial.

Again, it was all matters of appointing, dismissing, evaluating, promoting, demoting, and transferring officials.

Every time I saw this, I wondered how I could possibly have so many officials.

I needed to think of a way to streamline things.

Fortunately, today was not one of the fifth days.

On the fifth, fifteenth, and twenty-fifth of every month, I also had to hold court in the audience hall and receive envoys from vassal states and foreign emissaries.

If all that were added on top of this, I would have to stay up late again tonight.

Still, the last time I received foreign emissaries, I ended up becoming pen pals with their king.

That white-haired, curly-headed man had brought me many Western trinkets, so I sent him some tea leaves and porcelain in return.

Court was dismissed, and I changed out of my court robes.

7:00. Time for breakfast.

“Serve the meal-”

The eunuchs set out three tables and arranged twenty imperial dishes: fruit porridge, bird’s nest Eight Immortals noodles, duck and three-delicacy noodles, shredded mutton, bird’s nest and shredded chicken wontons, and more.

There were also over a dozen kinds of pastries and wheaten foods: bean-flour buns, bean-flour rolls, bean porridge, and the like.

It looked like a lot, but I could not eat it all, nor could I eat much.

All because Third Elder Brother had choked to death while eating.

The Late Emperor had therefore set rules for me.

I could only go through the motions. For each dish, I could eat at most three bites, and I could not show too much fondness for any particular dish.

If I took even one extra bite, that dish would not appear again for the next month.

The Late Emperor himself, however, was not bound by such restrictions. If he finished something he liked, he could simply order another serving.

Fortunately, I had never been one to overeat.

It was not that I did not enjoy the pleasures of the table.

It was simply that imperial cuisine was not all that delicious.

These imperial dishes were prepared well in advance and kept warm over the fire while they waited.

After simmering there for several hours, how good could they possibly taste?

They were no longer fresh at all.

So was there nothing tasty?

There was.

My beloved box tofu.

Tofu was hollowed out into the shape of a little box, filled with small tofu cubes, then stuffed with minced chicken, covered with a tofu lid, and braised in rich chicken broth. The freshness of it was indescribable!

I truly loved eating it.

But for every imperial meal, which dishes were served, which ones I ate, and how many bites I took were all recorded.

Whenever I dined, I had to calculate the frequency and number of times in my head, and even take a few extra bites of things I did not like to muddy the waters.

To get one bite of my beloved box tofu, I had truly paid a great price.